“You could have fired a shot.”
“There were Indians closer than you,” he said.
Orrin told us about it around the fire. He had shucked his saddle off the dead
sorrel and started for camp, but being a sly one, he was not about to leave a
direct trail to our hideout, so he went downhill first and stumbled on a rocky
ledge which he followed sixty or seventy yards.
There had been nine or ten Indians in the party and he saw them before they saw
him, so he just laid right down where he was and let them pass by. They were all
warriors, and the way they were riding they might miss his dead horse.
“They’ll find it,” Cap told us, “it’s nigh to dark now, so they won’t get far
tonight. Likely they’ll camp somewhere down the creek. At daybreak they’ll see
the buzzards.”
“So?”
“That’s a shod horse. It isn’t likely they’d pass up a chance to get one man
afoot and alone.”
Any other time we could have high-tailed it out of the country and left them
nothing but tracks, but now we were men of property and property ties a man
down.
“Think they’ll find us?”
“Likely,” Cap said. “Reckon we better hold to camp a day or two. Horses need the
rest, anyway.”
We all sat there feeling mighty glum, knowing the chances were that if the
Indians didn’t find us they would stay around the country, looking for us. That
meant that our chance of rounding up more cattle was coming down to nothing.
“You know what I think?” They waited for me to speak up. “I think we should cash
in our chips. I think we should take what we’ve got and hit the trail for Santa
Fe, sell what we’ve got, and get us a proper outfit. We need three or four
horses per man for this kind of work.”
Tom Sunday flipped his bowie knife into the sand, retrieved it and studied the
light on the blade while he gave it thought. “Not a bad idea,” he said. “Cap?”
“If Orrin’s willin’.” Cap hesitated. “I figure we should dust out of here, come
daybreak.”
“Wasn’t what I had in mind,” I said, “I meant to leave right now … before
those Indians find that sorrel.”
The reason I hadn’t waited for Orrin to speak was because I knew he was pining
to see that yellow-haired girl and I had some visiting in mind my own self.
Only it wasn’t that … it was the plain, common-sense notion that once those
Indians knew we were here, starting a herd might be tough to do. It might take
them a day or two to work out our trail. Chances were by the time they found we
were gone we’d be miles down the trail.
So I just picked up my saddle and headed for my horse. There is a time that
calls for action and when debate makes no sense. Starting a herd in the middle
of the night isn’t the best thing to do, but handling cattle we’d be scattered
out and easy picking for Indians, and I wanted to get started.
We just packed up and lit out. Those cattle were heavy with water and grass and
not in the mood for travel but we started them anyhow. We put the north star at
our backs and started for Santa Fe.
When the first sun broke the gray sky we had six miles behind us.
Chapter VI
We had our troubles. When that bunch began to realize what was happening they
didn’t like it. We wore our horses to a frazzle but we kept that herd on the
trail right up to dusk to tire them out as much as to get distance behind us. We
kept a sharp lookout, but we saw no Indians.
Santa Fe was a smaller town than we expected, and it sure didn’t shape up to
more than a huddle of adobe houses built around a sunbaked plaza, but it was the
most town I’d ever seen, or Orrin.
Folks stood in the doorways and shaded their eyes at us as we bunched our cows,
and then three riders, Spanish men, started up the trail toward us. They were
cantering their horses and staring at us, then they broke into a gallop and came
charging up with shrill yells that almost started our herd again. It was Miguel,
Pete Romero, and a rider named Abreu.
“Ho!” Miguel was smiling. “It is good to see you, amigo. We have been watching
for you. Don Luis has asked that you be his guests for dinner.”
“Does he know we’re here?” Orrin was surprised.
Miguel glanced at him. “Don Luis knows most things, señor. A rider brought news
from the Vegas.”
They remained with the herd while we rode into town.
We walked over to the La Fonda and left our horses in the shade. It was cool
inside, and quiet. It was shadowed there like a cathedral, only this here was no
cathedral. It was a drinking place, and a hotel, too, I guess.
Mostly they were Spanish men sitting around, talking it soft in that
soft-sounding tongue of theirs, and it gave me a wonderful feeling of being a
travelled man, of being in foreign parts. A couple of them spoke to us, most
polite.
We sat down and dug deep for the little we had. Wasn’t much, but enough for a
few glasses of wine and mayhap something to eat. I liked hearing the soft murmur
of voices, the clink of glasses, and the click of heels on the floor. Somewhere
out back a woman laughed, and it was a mighty fine sound.
While we sat there an Army officer came in. Tall man, thirtyish with a clean
uniform and a stiff way of walking like those Army men have. He had mighty fancy
mustaches.
“Are you the men who own those cattle on the edge of town?”
“Are you in the market?” Orrin said.
“That depends on the price.” He sat down with us and ordered a glass of wine. “I
will be frank, gentlemen, there has been a drought here and a lot of cattle have
been lost. Most of the stock is very thin. Yours is the first fat beef we’ve
seen.”
Tom Sunday glanced up and smiled. “We will want twenty-five dollars per head.”
The captain merely glanced at him. “Of course not,” he said, then he smiled at
us and lifted his glass. “Your health—”
“What about Don Luis Alvarado?” Orrin asked suddenly.
The captain’s expression stiffened a little and he asked, “Are you one of the
Pritts crowd?”
“No,” Tom Sunday said, “we met the don out on the Plains. Came west from Abilene
with him, as a matter of fact.”
“He’s one of those who welcomed us in New Mexico. Before we took over the
Territory the Mexican government was in no position to send troops to protect
these colonies from the Indians. Also, most of the trade was between Santa Fe
and the States, rather than between Santa Fe and Mexico. The don appreciated
this, and most of the people here welcomed us.”
“Jonathan Pritts is bringing in settlers,” Orrin said.
“Mr. Pritts is a forceful and energetic man,” the captain said, “but he is under
the false impression that because New Mexico has become a possession of the
United States … I should say, a part of the United States … that the
property rights of all Spanish-speaking people will be tossed out the window.”
There was a pause. “The settlers—if one wishes to call them that—that Jonathan
Pritts is bringing in are all men who bring their guns instead of families.”
I had me another glass of wine and sat back and listened to the captain talking
with Tom Sunday. Seems the captain was out of that Army school, West Point, but
he was a man who had read a sight of books. A man never realizes how little he
knows until he listens to folks like that talk. Up where I was born we had the
Bible, and once in a while somebody would bring a newspaper but it was a rare
thing when we saw any other kind of reading.
Politics was a high card up in the hills. A political speech would bring out the
whole country. Folks would pack their picnic lunches and you’d see people at a
speech you’d never see elsewhere. Back in those days ‘most every boy grew up
knowing as much about local politics as about coon dogs, which was about equal
as to interest.
Orrin and me, we just set and listened. A man can learn a lot if he listens, and
if I didn’t learn anything else I was learning how much I didn’t know. It made
me hungry to know it all, and mad because I was getting so late a start.
We’d picked up a few more head of cattle coming south and the way it was going